Acquisition-hungry Petroplus said earlier this month that
its full-year net profit more than quadrupled to $310.4
million, helped by purchases of new refineries.

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Thomas O'Malley, chairman of Petroplus, will act as the
chief executive of the partnership.

The venture should allow Petroplus to add to earnings per
share and free cash flows, Petroplus said.

O'Malley has presided over a period of rapid expansion at
the firm, taking it onto the Zurich stock exchange and buying a
string of refineries to expand operations from Belgium to
Britain, Switzerland, Germany and France.

Petroplus has been at the forefront of a boom of smaller
independent refiners not affiliated to the global major oil
producing company like Royal Dutch Shell Plc <RDSa.L>, BP Plc
<BP.L> and Exxon Mobil Corp <XOM.N>.

O'Malley was a key figure in the boom of the surge of the
independents in the United States -- a forerunner of what is
happening in Europe -- building up Premcor and Tosco Corp
before they were sold to bigger rivals Valero Energy Corp
<VLO.N> and Phillips Petroleum respectively.

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke in New York and Douwe Miedema
in Zurich; Editing by Jan Dahinten)